The United States has announced that its armed forces carried out an overnight raid on the oil tanker Bertha in the Indian Ocean. The US Department of War stated that the right-of-visit boarding operation went 'without incident', with a video showing three military helicopters hovering over the vessel.
The Bertha was operating in defiance of President Trump's quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean and attempted to evade, according to the department. This raid follows two previous boardings: the Russian-flagged Marinera in the North Atlantic on 7 January, and the Motor Taker Sophia in the Caribbean, both by US Coast Guard tactical teams.
'Three boats ran and now all three have been captured,' the Department of War said in its announcement. It added: 'From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we tracked it and stopped it. No other nation has the global reach, endurance, or will to enforce sanctions at this distance.'
The Bertha is a 330-metre crude oil tanker built in 2004, sailing under the flag of the Cook Islands. Maritime tracking websites show its last automatic identification system (AIS) signal was 80 days ago, off the Nigerian coast, far from the Indian Ocean where the raid occurred.
Units from the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) conducted the operation. The department emphasised that international waters are not a refuge for sanctioned actors and that US forces will continue to deny illicit actors freedom of manoeuvre in the maritime domain.
